A terrorist cell that recruited fighters for al-Qaeda in North Africa, has been dismantled by Tunisian security forces, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

Seven people were arrested from the network of terrorist recruiters, including two who were detained on the Algerian border and cofessed to being part of the cell.

"A terrorist network which was responsible for recruiting radical Islamists and sending them to strongholds of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been dismantled," a ministry spokesman said, quoted by the official TAP news agency.

Al-Qaeda in North Africa has emerged as significant force in the region, following the Arab Spring uprisings and the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

US officials have speculated that the disparate terrorist network were behind the killing of their ambassador in Benghazi in October this year.